About a year ago, not long after Eric Adams was sworn in as the mayor of New York, an old friend and church leader named Lamor Whitehead went to an auto shop in the Bronx, to drop off a Mercedes-Benz G-Class S.U.V. that had been in a crash. Whitehead led a small church in Brooklyn called Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries. People called him Bishop. The shop he visited, No Limit Auto Body, was operated by a man named Brandon Belmonte, who was involved in real estate. Federal prosecutors would later refer to Belmonte as “a businessman.”
The Mercedes was a twenty-five-thousand-dollar job. Belmonte paid the thirteen-thousand-dollar bill for a rental replacement while the work was getting done. Whitehead wanted more. “He basically says, ‘You got to give me another five grand,’” Belmonte recalled. “I said, ‘Bro, the job was only twenty-five thousand. Thirteen and five is eighteen. The parts were seven grand. I’m gonna make zero.’ ” It occurred to Belmonte that Whitehead wasn’t trying to negotiate— he was asking for a kickback. He promised to make it worth Belmonte’s while. “I got City Hall in my back pocket,” Whitehead said, according to Belmonte.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 30, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 30, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
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HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
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Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
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President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
